• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, Yesterday

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has sued the streaming platform Roku for allegedly collecting data from children younger than 13, and allegedly disclosing information about video-viewing history of users of all ages.

“Roku collects personal information from all users of its platform by default -- instead of first determining whether those users are children,” Nessel alleges in a 54-page complaint filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

“Roku knowingly discloses personally identifiable information that identifies Roku customers as having requested or obtained specific video materials or services from Roku,” the attorney general adds.

Nessel claims that Roku's is violating several laws, including the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, and federal and state video privacy laws.

The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act prohibits companies from knowingly collecting children's personal data -- including locations, IP addresses, persistent identifiers, and voice recordings -- without parental consent. Federal and Michigan video privacy laws ban companies that sell or rent videos from disclosing users' personally identifiable video viewing history, without their consent.

Roku stated that it “strongly disagrees with the allegations, which do not reflect how our services work or our efforts to protect viewer privacy.”

“We plan to challenge these inaccurate claims and look forward to demonstrating our commitment to trust and compliance,” the company stated, adding: “We do not use or disclose children’s personal information for targeted advertising or any other purpose prohibited by law, nor do we partner with third-party web trackers or data brokers to sell children’s personal information.”

Among other allegations, Nessel says Roku gathers personal data from children who watch programs on Roku Channel's “Kids and Family” section, which offers content like “Ryan's World,” featuring influencer Ryan Kaji removing toys from their boxes.

“When children access content by first navigating to Kids and Family on The Roku Channel -- one of many child-directed sections of the platform -- Roku collects their personal information without parental notice and consent and uses that information to deliver targeted behavioral advertising to children on Roku platform pages,” the attorney general alleges.

The complaint also alleges that Roku “collects and allows third parties to collect the personal information of children watching third-party channels when those third parties fail to identify their content as directed to children.”

Nessel additionally alleges that Roku violates the federal Video Privacy Protection Act (and a related Michigan state law) by sharing personally identifiable video-viewing data data with other tech companies -- including Google and Meta -- via tracking technology.

Similar video privacy claims have been raised against numerous companies -- including Paramount, NBC, the National Basketball Association and others. To date, lawsuits alleging violations of the Video Privacy Protection Act have had mixed success in court.